


These Ties That Bind

by antiquitea



Category: Political Animals
Genre: Drug Use, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-28
Updated: 2012-06-28
Packaged: 2017-11-08 19:10:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/446517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antiquitea/pseuds/antiquitea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's one place that T.J. is always welcome, no matter what kind of night it's been.</p>
            </blockquote>





	These Ties That Bind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flyicarus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flyicarus/gifts).



> I often hesitate to write anything for which I've not yet seen, but with these two I simply couldn't help it. Many thanks extended to Jackie, for not being much help at all, and for simply fanning the flames of my desire to write about these two, and for providing a title for this story. ;)

He hears the familiar footfalls in the entry way before he hears the crash in the living room, no doubt something priceless and irreplaceable about to find its way into a dustpan and ultimately into the garbage.

Anne sits up quickly, inhaling a sharp breath and clutching the bed sheets to her chest, eyes darting around the room in the darkness. Doug is already up, shrugging on a t-shirt and pulling the hem of it down over his stomach. It takes Anne a moment to become fully coherent, but when she does, the expression on her face shifts from fear to malice.

“Doug, I swear –”

“Go back to sleep,” Doug says, rubbing a hand over his tired face. “I’ll handle it.”

“He can’t –”

“I said I’ll handle it,” Doug interrupts, a hard edge in his voice that he hadn’t intended. He sighs and purses his lips together, hands balled into fists at his sides as he stares at a fixed point on the wall opposite him. When it becomes apparent that he has nothing more to say, Anne huffs a sigh and flops petulantly down onto the bed, almost immediately turning her back to her fiancé.

Doug pushes open the bedroom door, stepping into the dimly lit hallway. While his eyes adjust and he pulls the door closed behind him as gingerly as he can, he can already hear the shuffling in the living room, shards of glass moving across the floor, likely into an open palm or a laid out leather jacket as opposed to something more effective. Doug moves as quickly, and yet as quietly as he can, not wanting to cause alarm; he doesn’t know what kind of night it has been. And after looking at the clock, and seeing the hour hand slightly past the two, he realizes he doesn’t know what kind of morning it’s been either.

He’s not the least bit surprised when he crosses the threshold into the living room, having painted the picture of the sight he’s laid eyes upon long before he’d even left the darkness of his bedroom, the warmth of Anne’s body next to his. T.J. is crouched down on the floor, his back to Doug, picking up pieces of whatever has been broken as gingerly as his trembling fingers will allow him. And if he hadn’t already, Doug was surprised it took him this long to finally get cut. T.J. hisses and swears, dropping a piece of glass onto the floor, grabbing his wrist. Doug strides across the floor quickly, seeing the red line of T.J.’s palm, more concerned about the fact that his brother is bleeding than the stain any drops of blood will inevitably leave on the white rug Anne recently purchased.

“Hey,” Doug says softly, crouching down next to T.J. “Let me look at that.”

T.J. says nothing as Doug grabs his wrist, pulls his own hand away from it. Doug quietly inspects the cut on T.J.’s palm for a moment, finding it to be little more than scratch, though he doesn’t doubt that it still hurts like hell. He pretends to look for a little while longer, but really he’s looking at T.J. He knows when his brother is strung out, and this is one of those times, as often is the case whenever T.J. stumbles into his home at this hour. T.J.’s eyes are red rimmed, whether from the coke or the tears Doug can see slowly clouding his vision, he doesn’t know. Doug doesn’t care. His hair is tousled, pressed flat against his head on one side, and he’s trembling visibly already. Doug doesn’t know how long it’s been since the high, but it’s apparent that coming down began not too long ago.

“I broke your vase,” T.J. mumbles pathetically, wiping under his nose, and Doug notices for the first time what it was that T.J. knocked over. It as an ugly thing, an engagement gift from Anne’s uncle. Doug had said nothing about it when Anne had set it on a table in the living room, figured this was when it began, slowly losing his hold on what any room looked like. She was interior designer, what did he know. Also, he didn’t much care.

“It’s okay,” Doug says, rubbing his thumb against T.J.’s palm, mindful of the cut. “I didn’t like it much anyway.”

“Anne did, though. Didn’t she?” T.J. asks, finally meeting Doug’s eyes after what felt like an eternity of avoiding his gaze.

“She and I had differing views on the vase,” Doug replies simply. “C’mon. Let’s get you up and cleaned up.”

T.J. complies, pushing himself slowly to his feet as Doug helps him to stand. Doug places a comforting hand on T.J.’s back, still holding his brother’s wrist. He’ll worry about the mess of glass soon, after he gets T.J. to the kitchen to get him a drink and a dressing for his hand. T.J. is unsure on his feet, and Doug wonders how he got to the house in the first place. It’s only then that he notices the beginnings of a bruise around T.J.’s right eye, and he wonders who his brother pissed off tonight.

Keeping a steady hand on the small of T.J.’s back, Doug leads his brother to the kitchen, carefully flicking on the light switch with his elbow, not wanting to take the pressure off of T.J.’s wrist, not wanting to see him falter. He keeps the lights dim, not turning them all on, knowing that they hurt T.J.’s eyes when they’re too bright, when he’s coming down. Doug leads T.J. over to the island in the center of the kitchen, helps him onto a stool. T.J. immediately slumps forward, his injured hand flying out to brace himself for a potential face plant into the tile, but Doug nudges him back a little. He takes T.J.’s free hand and brings it to his wrist, instructing him to apply pressure there. T.J. nods and Doug lets go, moving over to the sink and turning in the faucet to wet a cloth, ducking down and opening the cupboard below to grab the first aid kit.

It’s been like this since they were boys, teenaged kids all pomp and circumstance in front of the camera, laughing like the children they never got to be as they played hide and seek in empty rooms of the White House. Somewhere along the way, their paths deviated, and it wasn’t a matter of “why would you?” but more of “how could I not?” What kind of brother, human being, would he have been to simply let his brother fall, and not be there to pick up the pieces?

Doug didn’t profess to ever understand what his twin went through, he couldn’t, he wasn’t there with him. He tried once, shortly after T.J. had discovered marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy. Doug wanted to know, wanted to figure out what was so appealing. He’d done one line at a party T.J. dragged him to, and the coming down hadn’t been worth the high. Their mother had yelled at them until she was hoarse days later, a photograph of the two of them having found their way into a gossip rag. She’d smacked Doug with the tabloid and slapped T.J. hard across the face. They’d never questioned whether or not she loved them, of course she did. As furious as she had been about the photos, she’d been more concerned about their well being.

Doug had already decided never to use again, T.J. almost took it as a challenge.

Good days, bad days, they were both prevalent, for what seemed like all their lives. When it became apparent that it might always be this way for T.J., try as he might to quit, Doug didn’t fight it. Not for a lack of wanting T.J. to get clean, they talked about at length still, but that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t help when T.J. needed it.

So, Doug had the first aid kit ready for the cuts and other injuries T.J. would acquire, green tea and honey because T.J. had said once it helped, plenty of water, and of course a guest room at the end of the hallway upstairs. The guest room went without question, there were always guest rooms, but that one was specifically T.J.’s. Anne wanted to turn it into a library, they had two other guest rooms that T.J. could use, but Doug had refused, put his foot down, saying that T.J. needed his own room, some place where he would be comfortable, where he would be safe.

“Ran into someone’s fist, I see,” Doug says conversationally, making his way back over to the island, looking at T.J.’s face.

T.J. is startled out of his reverie, and he watches as Doug sits down beside him, then grabs his wrist after setting the first aid kit and the cloth down. “Uh, yeah. Just once.”

The barest of smiles graces Doug’s lips, and he glances down as he begins to wipe the blood off of T.J.’s palm. “What kind of night was it?”

“Started off good,” T.J. replies, reaching up and rubbing his free hand through his hair, pushing it away from his face. “Ended up bad.”

“Don’t they all,” Doug mutters, mostly to himself as he sets the cloth down and opens the first aid kid.

He can smell it on T.J., where he’s been and what he’s done. Doug doesn’t judge, he can’t, not with T.J. Long ago, he became accustomed to the smell of the clubs, back alleys, vomit, and boy sweat that his brother wore like a cologne. Doug wishes he’d find other ways to obtain it than burning the candle at both ends, running full tilt toward his own destruction.

They sit in silence for a while, Doug tending to T.J.’s cut, T.J. eventually shrugging off his leather jacket, wiping furiously at his face as he begins to sweat. It’s then that Doug gets up, goes to the refrigerator to get a bottle of water, and puts the kettle on to make tea.

“You want to lecture me,” T.J. mumbles, picking at the thread of the new dressing around his hand.

“I always do,” Doug says, leaning back against the counter, watching his brother slowly fall to pieces. It breaks his heart every single time, and he’s never gotten any stronger, been able to watch it without his insides feeling like they’re in a vice. He’s just learned to hide it.

“Could you not?” T.J. asks, hot tears spilling down his cheeks.

Doug is at T.J.’s side in an instant, pulling him into his arms, cradling him against his chest. He hadn’t planned on lecturing T.J., it never goes well when he’s coming down. His words fall on deaf ears when T.J. is sober, what good would they do at times like this? The kettle is whistling by the time T.J. cries himself out, pulls back and wipes at his cheeks and under his eyes with his injured hand. Doug reluctantly pushes away and goes to prepare a cup of tea for T.J., and grabs an ice pack for his eye along the way. They don’t speak of it, though they don’t act like it didn’t just happen, they both know it did, and it does frequently, the same scenes playing out over and over again. Events of various nights playing out like déjà vu’s over the course of their lives, there’s a pattern to it, a dance, they figured it out long ago, and they’ve both simply gone with it ever since.

After making T.J. his tea, Doug simply sits with him for a little while, and when he’s sure T.J. is as okay as he will be in his current state, he goes to the living room to clean up the mess of glass made by the broken vase. He’s careful not to cut himself, collects all the broken shards into a dustpan and takes them out to the garbage can in the garage. Doug knows that he’ll get hell from Anne later about the vase, he can’t find it in himself to care. When he gets back to the kitchen, T.J. is slumped over slightly, shoulders hunched, and Doug places a hand on his shoulder.

“Bed?” he asks.

“Can’t sleep,” T.J. replies, his voice small.

“You don’t have to,” Doug says. “But you can lie down if you want. I’ll be there.”

Doug helps T.J. to his room, the one just for him at the end of the hall. He grabs a couple of bottles of water along the way, knows that T.J. will wake up when he does fall asleep with a dry mouth. After turning on the light and keeping it low, Doug helps T.J. out of his clothes, folding them neatly and placing them on a nearby chair, listening to the sounds of the sheets rustling, of T.J. getting settled.

The amount of words exchanged between them on these nights is always minimal – T.J. because he can’t bring himself to say more than necessary, ashamed of what he’s done, Doug because he doesn’t want to instigate, just wants to help. T.J. rolls onto his side and faces Doug, watches him as he makes his way toward the bed, and ends up shifting back a little to make space for him. Doug gets onto the bed, sitting up with his back against the headboard, and sighs deeply. T.J. always says that he can’t sleep, and sometimes it’s the truth, but there are other times when he finds that he can, whether he knew it or not. Doug runs his hands through T.J.’s hair, just like he used to when they were kids and T.J. got the flu, or a case of the sniffles, which Doug inevitably picked up. T.J. used to protest, saying that he didn’t need to be coddled, but ultimately gave up, finding it comforting but never wanting to admit it.

T.J. falls asleep, his breathing evening out, and Doug’s heart stops hammering inside of his chest. He’s never calm until T.J. is asleep, knowing that when he finally can close his eyes, give himself over to slumber, that he’s out of the water for the most part, that the worst is over. Doug lingers a few minutes longer, before moving as carefully as he can, and leaving the room.

He doesn’t bother going back to his bedroom, knows that he’s not really welcome there at the moment. They’ll fight about it later, and he wants to catch a few more winks before he has to get up, if he can. It’s not that Anne doesn’t care about T.J., she does in a way that one puts up with the member of their fiancé’s family that they like the least. She would never give him an ultimatum, wouldn’t dare, but Doug knows that from time to time she wants to. He’d given her the “blood is thicker than water” speech many times before, but that didn’t mean she came to even understand why T.J. always came to their home, why he always needed Doug to make him that cup of green tea with honey, and she never would.

Doug sleeps on the couch, manages an hour and a half before he has to get up. The door to T.J.’s room is closed when he goes to get in the shower after putting the coffee on, but he finds it wide open when he steps back into the hallway. He ambles carefully into the room, towel around his waist, skin still damp, looking for any sign of his brother. Doug isn’t at all surprised to see that he’s gone, bed sheets rumpled and kicked to the end of the bed, water bottles absconded with. 

He never stays, never lingers long enough to face the shame, to face the morning with his brother. Doug never professes to understand, never blames him for bailing with as little human contact as possible. Anne is up, Doug can hear her in the kitchen, she hasn’t noticed the vase is gone yet, otherwise he would already be hearing about it. 

As he dresses for the day, fidgeting with his tie, unable to stop his hands from shaking, the nights up with T.J. always leaving him frayed around the edges, his iPhone buzzes with an incoming message. Doug reaches for the mobile on the dresser, giving up on the tie for a moment. It’s a text from T.J., which isn’t uncharacteristic of him the morning afterward, but not a frequent occurrence.

_Tonight I’m staying home._

Doug manages a smile, re-reading the message a few times before responding. Oh, how he’d love it if T.J. would. It’s not that he doesn’t believe in his brother, doesn’t want to smack him every time he stumbles into his house high, drunk, or whatever he wants to be that night. He wants to help him, wants him to get help, wants him to be okay. Doug knows T.J. will never be any of those things if he pushes him away, if he doesn’t let him fuck up from time to time. The lecture is coming, it’s like clockwork, just like the late nights, and the early mornings. They’ll yell at one another, because they’re tired and they’re scared, because they’re frustrated, because they love one another, but never because they hate one another.

Sighing, Doug wishes that it were all different. But it’s not.

_You’re welcome here if you don’t._


End file.
